Run Rabbit Run
by wrestlefan4
Summary: Matt provides Chris some much needed comfort, and wishes he didn't have to run so hard. Implied slash. Matticho.


**Run, rabbit run.  
**

**Dig that hole, forget the sun,  
**

**And when at last the work is done,  
**

**Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.**

**~Pink Floyd~**

**Living in a constant chase compels people **

**to expend their spirits  
**

**to the point of exhaustion**

**~Friedrich Nietzche~  
**

The wood planks creek as my booted feet move me towards the familiar form, hunched and looking small in the shadows. The moonlight winks silver from the bleached highlights, usually gelled up in a way that he's fussy about, to the point of it being a joke with everyone else. I can see that right now, it's not combed into the usual plume. When I see his face I know that it'll be softly falling onto his forehead, in a way that makes him seem almost boyish, and in a way that I secretly like it best. I settle next to him, and would smile, but just from the way his shoulders were rolled I could tell that a somber cloud had settled over him tonight. The bottle in his hands tells me I'm right, but that it could be worse. If the bottle was his favorite poison, Grey Goose, then I'd know there was a real bad storm pouring gray, cold rain, down onto this man. However the vodka, which I used to drink with him when we had the chance, was instead tonight a bottle of wine and it made the corner of my lips quirk up into a small smile. I slipped the nearly drained bottle from his hands effortlessly, he made no move to hold onto it. His eyes, the most beautiful blue that I'm sure exists on this planet, drift forlornly out over the bay that churns under the ink of the night sky. Before I can crack some joke about his choice of drink tonight, as some attempt to lighten his mood, he seems to suspect my move and speaks in a low, monotone.

"I like the taste."

I hate to hear his words dull like that. I love it when he's full of life and his voice is excited and spinning some yarn to a group of eager listeners, popping jokes the way he does, the punch-lines followed by that brilliant, dazzling smile. Like his eyes, I don't think I've ever seen a smile like that, one so perfect that it seems unreal, and the cold truth is that too many times it is.

I understand what he feels, the lost look in his eyes as they keep focuses onto the nothingness far out into the bay is one I've seen reflected in my own so many times. We both know without having to speak about it that we are nearly twinned in these moments of lostness. Sometimes we have long conversations on the phone, when our brands are most always traveling in different parts of the country. Neither of us can really answer the others common question, of why we have given so much, why we have busted our asses and hearts for this company, and yet seem to be spat upon at nearly every turn. I know without seeing it, that like me he fakes a smile when he's around others, and acts as if it doesn't bother him. I know every question that rolls through his mind but keeps themselves off of his tongue because they're my questions too. I know that when he's alone he can't sleep because the darkness closes in around him and he wonders why he isn't good enough. I wonder too.

I turn the bottle in my hands, watching the dark purple-red liquid swish against the glass. Suddenly, I feel bad for taking it from him. In our world of constant travel, aches and pains, loneliness, forgotteness, there aren't a lot of comforts we can turn too. It's no wonder that so many of us end up curled around one another, in ways we never would have imagined, or lost in a sea of shot-glasses and empty beer bottles, or fucked up by one too-many pills. It takes a strong, strong person to be able to come out of this business without any scars, and I doubt it's ever been done. Even the strongest man is whittled at until the thick bark of his tolerance is gone, leaving him naked and exposed, and weak to the things that constantly pelt him.

I hand the bottle back to him, and he tilts it to his lips, finishing off the drink. Now it is he who studies the bottle, held in the palm of one hand. The other rests against his thigh, trembling, and I know he's ashamed of the tears that are undoubtedly building behind his empty eyes. I pull it away from its shivering resting place and link our fingers, hearing the small sigh that escapes his lips at the touch. It isn't lustful, it's just the sound of a man relieved to find a bit of brief comfort in the midst of the swirling chaos that is his life.

Slowly, the trembling drains away from his hand, and its still, warmly clasped against mine. He shifts closer to me, our legs touching, and his head rests on my shoulder. I replace my hand against his with the other, my palm against the back of his, and wrap my now-freed arm around his back. He feels so good in my arms, and I nuzzled at the top of his head, taking in the fresh-scent of shampoo. My fingers stroke the back of his hand, then link with it again, and I can feel the tension melting away from his emotion-stiffened muscles. Underneath us, the waters lap and sweep at the thick beams of the dock, and their peaks in the distance glimmer and wink with the moonlight. The words that come from him next are barely there, and I know what he's saying behind them just by the way they sound on his lips.

"I have to catch a plane in the morning."

He's saying that he likes where he is, that he needs to be here, in this moment of comfort, but that the time we have to hold each other isn't long. I unwrap him from myself and get to my feet, in a way that makes my hips creak. My fingers reach down and drift through his downy hair, and he practically purrs at the gentle touch. He drops the empty wine bottle into the churning bay, and watches it bob on the choppy water. He gets to his feet too, and peers down at the dark wavelets.

"Do you think the water's cold?" He says eerily, and I tell him that he's not going to find out. He slowly nods his head, and I take his hand again. The brush of my palm against his seems to snap him once more out of the gloomy fog, and small smile pulls up the one side of his mouth.

Together our footsteps groan and creak over the planks of the dock, as we head back towards the boardwalk which has long ago been emptied. In a walk that isn't hurried, we move through the quiet night, picking our way in a path that will lead us back to our hotel. Our shoes whisper over the carpet and into the elevator, through the hallway and into my room. I don't have to even ask him, I know where he wants to be, and it certainly isn't in his own room, alone again. Our shoes are abandoned by the door, leaving around them sugary frames of white sand. Our night becomes one of soft touches, and hands that are in no hurry, lips that gently glide and ghost together and apart, over skin and flesh. For these moments we are just two men who understand one another, together and in sync in our comprehension of the world, and each other, and the comfort that both of us need. It isn't about man to man contact, but just understanding upon understanding, and being found, and for one night letting each other wash away our lostness.

When we're finished the light of dawn creeps gray through the pulled slats of the blinds. We lay next to each other, not seeming to be close enough, even though we're still practically on top of one another. His face is serene, if only for awhile, but the tired droop of his eyes eat at me. The white parts are spidered and pink, and the thought that he has only a few hours to get ready and to the airport, to be gone again, is horrible. I wonder when he sleeps, but I know not to ask him. He'll respond with 'I'll have time to sleep when I'm dead' and the phrase meant in jest would just seem too sickening for me to hear.

I wonder what it is that he's off to this morning. Is he going to catch the next show, a signing, to host one of those music shows on VH1 or whatever it is he does, to record with the band, or maybe to host that new game show spot he's just gotten. I don't know how he does it, and I wish that he would just tell me he has clones of himself. I know it isn't true, and it just makes my heart lurch in my chest. Chris is an overachiever but I know there's more to why he runs himself so ragged. I think that he's afraid to be still for too long, I think he has to keep running, because if he doesn't, the hounds of despair will catch up to him and fall on him with snarling, unforgiving teeth, and completely tear him apart. The thought of such a thing inches up my throat like bile and twists my stomach like the waves in the bay when we sat earlier and stared into its darkness.

When we were children, Jeff and I had rabbits, and the thing that haunts my mind in this moment is how a rabbit is when it's frightened. A rabbit, if consumed by its fear, will run, and run, and run until in its frenzy it twists and breaks its own back, or its small, thundering heart gives out on it. I pull Chris closer to me, wrapping my arms around him. He's too good of a person to do that to himself. He's completely lovely inside and out, and I don't want to go out to the cage one day, and find the beautiful rabbit curled in the corner with his pink eyes cold, spent and broken from exhaustion and too much hard running.

His eyes shift with effort, and glance sleepily at the numbers on the clock next to the bed. His hand pets over my curls, and over my shoulder, giving my bicep a squeeze.

"Matt, thank you."

He moves away from me and I watch him with a lump in my throat as he gathers his clothes, his movements slow and fatigued. I want to ask him if he really has to go, because I don't want him to. I want him to just stay here and let me hold him, and watch him as he sleeps, but I know his answer already. He has to keeping pushing himself, he has to run to the next thing, and immerse himself in his busy world so there is no time to stop and see how dark it is. At least I know that our paths will find us together again, when we find our laps on this track of life meeting up once more. I know we can share these moments again, that we must, because they're as precious as oasis in the arid desert. I know that for a moment, we can slow our footsteps, and we can walk together. That is, if he doesn't run himself too hard, before we meet up again.


End file.
